Flat Out Of Luck

Some days don’t just go sideways—they veer into a ditch, set up camp, and start roasting marshmallows.

It started like the perfect morning. Sunlight pouring through the windows. Birds doing their little Disney chorus thing. I actually thought to myself, “Well, isn’t this lovely? Today’s going to be a good day.”

Cue the record scratch.

I stepped outside and there it was—a tire that had clearly given up on life somewhere around 3 a.m. Not a slow leak. Not a subtle sag. This thing was flatter than roadkill on I-93. Aggressively horizontal. A crime scene in rubber.

It sat there like an air mattress the morning after camping—wrinkled, useless, and impossible to revive. No warning, no farewell hiss, not even a dramatic pop for flair. Just slumped over like, “I’ve been holding your sorry self together for too many years, lady, and I’m DONE. Figure it out.”

So, instead of my tidy little to-do list and that smug, get-stuff-done satisfaction, I got a pop quiz in “tire triage.” Which, for the record, involves kneeling in gravel while the wind tries to sandblast your face, balancing a jack that sounds like it’s been crying for help since 1998, and muttering words you wouldn’t say in front of your grandmother.

I haven’t crouched that long since I was elbow-deep in a goat birthing situation. And let me tell you—both experiences involve heavy breathing, regret, and the faint hope that someone will arrive to save you.

The jack was, of course, hiding. I finally found it buried under the back seat, keeping company with a fossilized French fry and what I’m 80% sure was once a map of Ohio. We’ve never been to Ohio, which means either the car’s been sneaking off without me or I’ve been storing roadside garbage for sport.

Anyway, I got the spare on. I survived. The tire. . . not so much.

The soundtrack to my morning? Picture muffled grumbling, the groan of a rusty jack, and the faint sound of my will to live rolling down the driveway.

But hey—I got the tire changed. I still made it through the day. Because sometimes life goes flat. . . and you fix it with grit, sarcasm, and just enough air to keep going.

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